Chapter 2

You were not meant to look.

But look he did.

And what was wrong with that?

Absolutely nothing.

The piggies were in the playground and there was a pleasant smell of perfume.

Oh yes!

One, two, three.

Dance my darlings!

He counted them as they passed: three fine fillies. Where else would you get that? All lined up in a row.

Don’t mind if I do.

They queued, awaiting service, completely unaware of him and their rapidly approaching fate.

A woman served them, individually placing in each one’s hand a selection of what they had gestured towards.

Ice-cream.

—Oink, oink!

The tall one then turned and eyed the old man and shook her head in disgust. She signalled to the other two and they followed suit.

Did as she did.

Little do they know.

Watching all along.

Careful now.

He followed them down Drumcondra road and watched them as they turned right on to Richmond.

The canal looked eloquent, its stagnant waters impenetrable.

It was his childhood, afar away place that he could never go back too. But it was a place that would always be there, that would command him.

Silver swans.

Grey swans.

Grand day for a swim.

Or a drowning!

He laughed to himself.

The three girls turned again and entered what looked like number eight. The door. It closed firmly behind them.

They must be sisters. Or friends. Hard to tell.

A surprise still!

He walked along by the canal, his steep and gait uneven, and sang softly to himself.

—Tee tum tee tum.

There was no one else near him.

On the other side of the canal stood Cian Park. The shadows of the clouds made it look more miserable than it actually was.

Awful kip.

A woman walked by with her dog.

—Afternoon.

He raised his hand to her and gracefully took off his hat.

She did not respond and merely eyed him suspiciously.

Bitch. Oh yes. Bitch.

At the back of number 8 stood a gate. This he easily opened, and in no time at all (of course) he was staring in through the back window of the little house that the girls had entered into.

He could not see a thing.

All misty.

Where are you my lovelies? My three little piggies. Where are you? Come along now, come a.

Suddenly, from behind, someone struck him on the head with something hard and he fell sideways to the ground.

—Fucking Jesus!

He did not expect that. Oh no.

On his knees, he turned and saw what looked like a boy of twelve standing over him with a short lead pipe.

What?

It was raised in anger: the thousand year old vengeance of a twelve year old.

How strange things are.

—Who are ya, ya dirty ole queer?

He did not have time to reply, for the boy had already hit him again, right down hard in the middle of the face.

His body fell loudly, crashing against some old tins cans by the corner of the back door.

He did not move.

An end to his interior monologue.

Of course.

—Is he dead?

—Ah no. That’s not enough to kill someone.

—Is he asleep?

—You could say that.

The little boy smiled. Then he looked up at them. At the three girls. They were all standing in a row.

Strange.

What, said the young boy.

Nothing, they all said.

He looked down again at the body of the man. It would be terrible to die there, he thought, terrible.

But choices had to made.

You could not go round hitting people twice on the head and not expect a major comeuppance.

Andthe.

Unless you killed them.

That was a sure way to repress the retribution.

For sometime at least.

Together, they dragged the old man down the middle of the back garden and out on to the bank of the canal.

—Are we going to throw him in?

—Of course. What else can we do?

—It just seems a bit much.

Nothing is too much, said the boy.

—Nothing at all. That is what we must appreciate. Nothing is ever too much. Everything that will happen has already happened. The future is the past.

They did not understand him.

The let the body slip into the still and murky waters of the canal, and it floated, for a moment or two, before it sank, deep down into his dark past.